Midnight till One

It is four minutes until midnight; four minutes until the witching hour. A fabled journal entry found in an old stone church on the foggy shores of Northern California reads, “Midnight till one belongs to the dead. Good Lord deliver us.” The stroke of midnight is the ghoulish caress of anguish and trepidation for the dramatic and for all things darkly mystical. There are only the unproven accounts of those who claim to have witnessed the true darkness of midnight. Many have witnessed the hour slit through the outcome of a prison execution with all the lacerating ease of the Reaper’s scythe. Many others have prayed with tight white knuckles in the final heavy breaths before whispering the dread of midnight. The hour courts an unnatural stillness, the incense smoke dances to the orchestra conducted by the gentle wind. The stillness is broken only but suddenly and only for the flash of a moment. The speeding motorist ignoring residential courtesies. The passing motorist with frantic eyes and dirty hands. A motorist with miles behind them, desperate to put many more between they and the unquestionable scene left behind. The stillness resumes. The rain comes in waves. The sound of her breathing is the only sound over the splashing outside. Her exhales of rhythmic tranquility are a drug. The rain rests for the time being and the stillness resumes. It grows quieter, softer. Wet pellets drip in pattern and everything is dimmer, softer still. The approach of midnight. The hush. The first minute is the longest and there is no turning back from a purgatory of time. Her sudden startling and familiar sirens in the distance shatter fragile nerves, and somewhere close by the stroke of midnight has meant despair. The rain returns, gaining its confidence in the tension. The earlier sirens were not enough. Whatever despair occurred, more attention was necessary. Her unconscious disquieting was brief and unknown. The limbo is unflinching and the stillness resumes. Stray clouds lingering after the rain scatter the sky under the glowing stillness. Their movements occasionally muffle the light of the moon over the sleepiest of streets. A large dog barks at the unheard. The barking is fierce and adamant with such urgency that you listen. You listen for cautious footsteps to crush the wet autumn leaves. The unseen takes images in your mind, images of stories told of the darkest animals living among us. Deadbolts fasten and porch lights plummet along the sleepy street. In the silence, in the crisp chill dead of night it is the hour of the dead. Sweaty, horrid men who have made unholy deals sit in dimly lit rooms, stricken by the fear of imbursement. Smoking cigarettes end to end, they know the only price for the deeds committed is the one thing they are unwilling to pay. They will pay. The devastation of others harvests in time. When midnight to one belongs to the dead, all debts fair and proper will be collected fair and final. At the stroke of twelve, the dead and their blight in their hour of liberty find their all-too-late reprieve. Shattered by the hands of man, the darkest of unknowns has enabled the lost to collect in the most swift and unsuspecting of ways. The timid gentleman of yesterday’s high-society drops dead, alone and without witness. Those in the house recall of the hour with gooseflesh the bolt of a desperate shriek, then the thud of finality. His hands froze in twisted claws and his eyes the empty mirror of the terror of his final moments. His closest confidant takes to the grave the insistence that the death of his business partner was of supernatural consequence. The haunting of the past crawled slowly through time to take back what never belonged. The unspeakable details of arsenic and betrayal surrounding the secrets followed along to the grave. There is a train station a few blocks downtown. The rapid dinging of the track signals is a few minutes early. The routinely heard dinging sounds are no more a nuisance than the stampeding passenger train that will inevitably follow, trundling east towards San Bernardino with person or persons unknown. The midnight train is the last ride to sanctuary before venturing the witching hour in an abandoned downtown that favors in early closure. The rapid dinging of the east midnight train is the dinner bell for the citizens of the city beneath the city. The train is gone and its horn echoes from the darkness into obscurity. It is after midnight. The stranded of the station had better pull their coats up close and hold their breath tight. Midnight till one belongs to the dead. The hour has begun and the stillness resumes.

My Burbank Photo

I captured a photo in the late afternoon of a famous corner of Burbank, California on Riverside Drive. This corner of Burbank marks the unofficial dividing line between Burbank and the tiny studio village of Toluca Lake. It is a corner you have seen on television and screen, the more fitting of the numerous entryways to the media capital of the world. Unbeknownst to many of the tourists comparing their handprints with John Wayne just over the Cahuenga Pass, these are the gates to the real Hollywood. The first instant moment when viewing this photo is absorbing the vivid cheerfulness of the day, the optimistic ambiance on typical afternoons in beautiful Southern California. I spent the twilight of my teens, all of my twenties and the beginning of my thirties living in a very small radius surrounding the region in this photo. My childlike eagerness to capture this photo from the passenger seat of my friend’s car stemmed from a sort of irrational homesickness. My recent years have seen me living outside of my familiar radius; Pasadena and the San Gabriel Valley, and so I become rather enthusiastic when my endeavors take me to Burbank. It is a genuine fondness for a city I consider my hometown. A historic all-night diner and a famous producer’s stage theatre serve as the gateposts entering west on Riverside. The buildings of the studios fail to provide much of a skyline, but it is in these buildings where the keepers of Hollywood keep a home address. The designing of film and television, as well as their promotion and marketing, is commencing all along this avenue, preferring the fans and tourists celebrate their fascination on the other side of the pass. Perfectly designed is the formula for small-town America and showbiz glitterati. It all begins here. Although, the reality is that anyone can slip off a freeway into various districts of Burbank, but the most welcoming of posts is the intersection of Riverside and Rose. The competing coffee shops produce stuttering streams of casual foot traffic. Smart women in smart outfits making accessories of lattes and please-do-not-look-at-me eyes. They are the finished product of once-Midwestern girls whose small pond importance found them a completely different person in the Pacific Ocean. The peppering of studios along the drive, shadow the pockets of peaceful and well-policed subdivisions. This postcard from Burbank hides the charming small town living among the nameless and sun-blinding structures producing your stories and idols. Thick trees line and shadow the sidewalks of side streets of preserved single-story bungalows and ranch houses. The citizens groups and city hall alumni are in a successful confederacy to preserve the vintage character of the older residential neighborhoods in the wake of sprouting mansions. A few droplets of modern Hollywood are trickling into the superb school districts, parks, quaint shops and dated communities that specialize in live television audiences. Taken in the middle of the week, this photo is simply another average bright reflection of the fun and laidback California. California, the rock show state. Where the lethargic should simply relocate and free up some of the overpriced spaces for those who wish to embalm themselves in a world where life is truly a stage. The calming blue skies are as immense as the images of carhops and rock and roll; exceedingly warm nights where you have a fifty-fifty chance of accidentally having a conversation with someone famous in the most natural and spontaneous of situations. The warmth of this photo carries most of the point intended of every postcard. Burbank, California. The gates are always open, although hours of operation may vary. And, so marks the long-winded captioning of my Burbank photo.

The Road Not Taken

I walked in on a conversation recently -- my whereabouts irrelevant -- and I heard an articulate middle-aged man talk of the road not taken. It was the very end of the conversation and the thoughts of his friends hung in midair. It was the tone with which he spoke that ignited a curiosity in me, and questions of whether that meant there was anything left unresolved in my own life. Every single one of us has come to a crucial moment at a crucial time in our lives where a major new life direction presented itself to us, and we had all the freedom and means to take it, but decided it was not worth the risk; too many dangers living in the trees alongside the road. So we decided, as unsure as we were, to take a different path instead. Boiling down to the argument of fate, I believe that everything happens for a reason; good or bad, and never questioning its practicality has recently bestowed upon me a queer sort of calm and serenity. I enjoy living in the moment, appreciating life day by day and little by little working towards success and happiness. I believe it is possible to embrace this baseless belief system and still be haunted by the echoes of the past. The echoes cry from a time before the belief system, a time when taking matters for granted was an often occurrence. It is wonderful when things in your life come full circle and they are far more beautiful now because of the time lapse and distance. Reforming those relationships or circumstances in a more positive and secure place solidifies the belief that everything truly meant to be will be when the time is right. The moment any seeds of wonder plant in your mind, the lingering of yesteryear will remain. Slight emotional itches until the closing of the circle or until you have found confidence, happiness and purpose in your present. Most circles in life never close. You take the alternate route and wish all those in the rearview well, then the construction of time builds over it and it becomes impractical to try to force its recovery after so long. It is a hard thing to be uncertain if you made the right decision then, especially when you feel lost in your present. Astray in your present, you cannot count on the circle coming to a close, even decades from now. The idea of fate is that all things are predetermined, but I feel that is only if you are making no conscious efforts to go against any grains. Inherently, our freewill throws many variables into the equation of fate, and accepting the responsibility of the willful choices progressively leads to the acceptance of responsibility to achieve reason and confidence in the present. Making your own luck is a beautiful and empowering thing, as well as a necessity when you have refused travel down all other paths. The roads you travel are your own, but the directions you decline must ultimately lead somewhere else, or to perpetually coast on an apathetic cruise control. To make use of your freewill and to go against the directions of fate stamps a certain responsibility to live excitedly and forge a path that happily makes up for the one you declined. These recent years have taught me that the only way to make up for unshakable regrets is to make them particularly relevant. To accept the past as something that will only come back to me if absolutely necessary, and to hold on to the values gained and the lessons learned since have given me strength to accept my past, bask in my present, and be ever wondering of my future. I, too, am guilty of remorse for the road not taken, and I owe it to myself not to allow the untaken road to be a symbol of regret. I have neglected to travel certain paths in life, for various reasons, and it has become my responsibility to make sure those reasons have a relevant purpose. I am fortunate enough to have notable memories of my past become beautiful realities once more in my present. This good fortune has inspired me to hold on to the belief that everything significant happens for a reason in its own time, but it has also opened my eyes to the chances we take. I have learned to be more aware of what I take for granted, and I have learned to ask myself if I am prepared to spend the rest of my life without it. The road not taken will always be a twinkle in the further parts of our minds, but it is the past. The road not taken will always serve as a source for unabated imagination on a long flight or in a rainy café. To find the obsession of yesteryear dominating your happiness is an indication that perhaps it is time to make some peace, create some luck and dare to imagine the possible roads ahead, resolving to take nothing for granted in the shortness of life. A cherished loved one of mine told me that “you always have a choice if only of attitude“, and that spoke to me deeply when I wrote this. I choose to have a good attitude and a stronger appreciation of life, doing my very best to take nothing for granted. In the end, I choose to make my own luck and I have no desire to take part in mourning for an unspoken past.

The House on West San Bernardino

In the middle of a high-traffic road on the fringes of modern suburbia is a vacant house with the literal signs of abandonment posted on a long thin slab of neglected property outside of its forbidding iron gates. Built in 1928 with a grandiose Spanish style, this $700,000 worth of real estate is attracting an assorted swarm of potential buyers and Sunday drivers. The empty abode is the star piece of scenery on one of my many walks and induces a series of daydreams that continue until my destination. I wonder of that first year in 1928, before the stock market crash made symbols of despair and suicide out of the Colorado Street Bridge in nearby Pasadena. That first year in a new house during the unknowing-tail-end of an era when the New York Times famously renowned that, “gin was the national drink, and sex the national obsession.” A home like this must have belonged to people or an individual of opulence and well-to-do standing. I imagine the situations of the possible occupants in that first year in a new home during the prohibition-jazz era, and their lives as suited for the home they inhabited. The overall first impression of the home is solitude, with all the comfort and amenities needed to exist in an expensive bubble. It has a neglected feeling of foreboding and sadness, but it also has the conflicting aura of mystery and danger. Its constant state of abandonment is testimony to the financial nightmare of its ownership, or to the world created once settled in. The home has four bedrooms and three bathrooms, suitable for the modern family of any decade. The one-bedroom guesthouse out back among the concrete courtyards, small pond, swimming pool, miniature streetlights and gazebos was ideal for the visiting in-laws and special guests of the family. The money was in citrus, earned the hardest of ways, and the family’s influence was apparent. The forbidding gates affirmed a family close and confidential in their endeavors, where appearances were of the utmost and the children’s dating circles were close and confining. Death or divorce came to one of the spouses, and as the children entered their thirties they remained at home, unwed and disgraceful, latched to their disreputable lifestyles and taking comfort in the knowledge that with each passing year they grow closer and closer to taking it all. They were no doubt a dysfunctional family with a secret. A dark and horrible secret binding them their whole lives until it could no longer stay buried, unraveling their world with such ferocity that absolute destruction of their bubble was their only fate. If a family endowed this home, the reasons for disappearing can only be gloomy ones. Sadder still is the simple possibility that the generation next in line came to tragedy in the Second World War, leaving only an era of broken dreams for a lonely two that carried on for a lifetime. Of course, there is the possibility of an ostentatious young newlywed couple with no children and no plans of ever slowing down long enough to have them. Budding stars of the studios -- behind the scenes -- their careers in make-believe granted them a lifestyle and a social circle that was as out of touch with the general populous as the house they purchased on a dizzy whim before they were married. An absolute whirlwind of a relationship; a relationship founded on reckless abandon and a style of nightlife that is best suited for envy than experience. Countless nights after two o’clock in the morning, alcohol-induced rages of jealousy, betrayal and hopeless insecurity shattered the rooms and hallways. The threats of suicide, always regarded as desperate melodrama, became sound to the mind after too many nights of crying and pleading to no one in an empty house. Her body discovered by friends in the bathroom of the closed-up, musty master bedroom. The litter of empty liquor bottles, overflowed ashtrays and broken home décor were all evidence of a devastated mind left alone for far too long. The news reached her disconnected husband in Ventura beach days later; a hotel clerk delivered the telegram. He always knew that the accusations of another woman were not completely unfounded, whether they could have been proven or not. His behavior and actions in the weeks leading up to her death was the catalyst that ruined him socially and within the studios. There was nothing more to do than dissolve into another life far away, haunted by the physical and emotional abandonment, and the selfishness of youth. The more traditional third scenario for stories in this setting is that of a solitary man, usually distant and mysterious, with strong financial means. I prefer the prospect of a lone woman in the age of late twenties or early thirties. She was a radiant blonde with sophisticated beauty, always dressing for her own style rather than for the sex of her race. A woman well educated, yet bubbly and warm, never married and rarely seen alone in the company of men in a dating sense. There was known facts about her distinguished education, but mystery remained surrounding the circumstances of her money. She was an artist of words and color, although not professionally as far as anyone knew. Her paintings subtly displayed throughout the common areas of her home and her manuscripts and poetry always nonchalantly scattered near reading chairs. Her home was always open to the community for holidays and regular parties during the summer. Her home became a source of social traffic although she never seemed to form a close relationship with anyone. She was never cold or distant, but it was obvious to those who knew her at all that she protected her heart and learned to be even more protective of her dreams. She never flirted with any woman’s husband, and her never-changing relationship status said that she was unwilling to give her time and romance to anyone who did not love her for who she really was at her core; an emotionally complicated and semi-undisclosed woman. At times, neighbors observed her hand delivering a letter to her postman -- never more than two at a time. They were letters of vibrant paper and exquisite cursive handwriting. There were fewer sightings of her and number of gatherings at her home during the thick of the January and February winter that came after that exciting summer of 1928. No one knew if she took ill or if the memories of the season took their turn in her emotions. The few sightings were usually of her making trips to her mailbox wearing large dark glasses, bundled up to her nose in a heavy, long black coat, her thick blonde hair lashing in the winds. The neighbors were hopeful and sad for her because they knew there was nothing. There was always nothing. Then one day she was gone. She had spoken of a trip once during the summer, when she was tipsy and laughing by her pool. No one could recall where she had spoken of. It was a place that held no familiarity in anyone’s mind. The general consensus was that she had taken that trip. Perhaps it was in search of her letters. When she left she never returned. Men with trucks came in her place, emptied the home and claimed to know nothing of where the boxes were going. She was gone and there the home remained, with lingering traces of sadness that are still evident to this day. Passing this home regularly, it being recently for sale and the Halloween season has made this home fun to imagine. To warp your thoughts to suit a holiday where it is okay to be scared, okay to explore the darker recesses of our imaginations. Built in 1928, and its last recorded renovation was in 1928. After pausing in time for so long this home has returned to the housing market, and for one million dollars you can own a secluded piece of California that has long grown past its intended golden age; for one million dollars you can try your luck against nearly a century of unrestrained nightmares. All of my rational faculties tell me not to get too excited about Gatsby moving into the neighborhood anytime soon, but the always-daydreaming side of me wants to imagine what scenario this era will be witnessing after escrow.